X-Treme Pampering

Adventures in Spa Treatments

By Laura Dannen and Christopher Werner

Illustration: Mark Matcho

Spaventures for Him

Day Four of the spa hop and there I was, wearing clunky Tretorns, mud-stained chinos, and a drab-dowdy rain jacket. My face was stubble-ridden, my hair greased-out after a particularly blustery afternoon. If I failed to fit the bill of the spa regular, it’s because I’m anything but a spa regular—ask me what it means to indulge and you get “port with dessert” for an answer. Yet, I’ll admit it—once I swapped my everyday garb for plush robes and stopped to smell the incense, I hung up my idea of indulgence, and my inhibitions, with surprising ease. And the concerns about dinging my dudeness? They, too, got left in the locker, right alongside the rain boots. —Christopher Werner

Macho Face-Off

Urban Man Facial

I’d had a facial before. It left me and my nose—which, I’ll admit, had been a checkerboard of clogged pores—officially facial-phobic. So when the time came for what’s euphemistically called “deep pore cleansing” (aka zit zapping) at Elaia Spa, I squirmed.

Granted, it was hard to get too worked up when half an hour earlier I was lounging poolside in a room with 15-foot windows that overlook downtown. And then getting rubbed down with organic succulent-­plant gel while a steady stream of steam turned my face to putty. But still.

I asked Sayaka how she planned to shine up my schnoz. Using a microscope that hovered overhead, she explained, she’d zero in on impurities then, with a looped thread, gently coax them free. If her hand here is nearly as nimble as when she applied the almond-mineral Hungarian mud mask, I convinced myself, I could put up with the plucks. Turns out, no convincing necessary. The whole thing tickled—tickled!—as if a sprightly tap dancer had taken my sniffer for his stage. Phew.

If anything got a reaction out of me, it was when Sayaka went south and pummeled my feet. Don’t get me wrong, I wholeheartedly welcomed the interlude. Especially when followed by a 10-minute, drool-inducing, cucumber mint lather of the shoulders, head, and chest. It’s just that I’m as ticklish as a hyperactive six-year-old. But hey, if I could overcome my facial-phobia, maybe I should’ve stuck around for a pedicure.

MAXIMUM STRENGTH Urban Man facial, $120 for 60 minutes
EASY WAY OUT Gentle Touch facial, $120
Elaia Spa at Hyatt at Olive 8, 1635 Eighth Ave, Downtown, 206-676-4500; elaiaspa.com

Knots to Noodle

Cranial Sacral Therapy

My upper vertebrae were popping like bottle rockets as my right shoulder got steamrolled by a deceptively gentle hand, a WMD to the stubborn, gnarled nest of tension surrounding the blade. “How’s the pressure?” inquired my masseur Trevor.

About that. I should note cranial sacral therapy traditionally employs a light touch. So light, the pressure is no more than the weight of a nickel. Practitioners canvas the body, their hands so attuned to its rhythms they can sense, then correct, congestion or imbalance. What benefits is the craniosacral system, which surrounds the brain and spinal cord and is central to physiological well being.

I, however, was gimpy from a five-mile run the night before, so I requested a firmer massage. What I got was a hard-soft mix, some moments more the former (recall the steamrolled shoulder) than the latter. Each swoop of Trevor’s hand—starting at the base of my spine, then inching upward—pulled in misaligned muscles like a magnet. Stopping along the way to target the money spots, he’d apply a pressure that electrified my body with cathartic release. It left me hopelessly limp and limber, if not a little stoned, within 15 minutes.

Trevor devoted a good chunk of time to my right shoulder—a mess of stress and poor posture, a gold mine for his sacral senses. Then he went after my legs, lifting them skyward one at a time, pushing my knee inward and so far to the side I nearly fell off the bed. But Trevor grabbed me at the last minute, swiftly pinning the opposite shoulder and twisting me into a human crossbow. So this is what it’s like to have yoga done to me. I could’ve stayed that way awhile, like a pretzel sprinkled with euphoric salts, but my 60 minutes were up.

MAXIMUM STRENGTH Cranial sacral therapy, $125 for 60 minutes
EASY WAY OUT Performance sports massage, $130
Vida Spa, 900 Lenora St, Ste 220, South Lake Union, 206-264-8432; vidawellness.com

Knead the Nerd

Wi-Fi Massage

Robe and slippers on, chilled lemon water in hand, I glanced toward the TV in the men’s lounge at the spa at Bellevue’s Pro Sports Club and caught what has to be the antithesis of relaxation: Glenn Beck, gesticulating away. Earlier, in the downstairs locker room, there was Wolf Blitzer. Pleeeease don’t allow a talking head into the massage room, I prayed.

Fortunately, the only head that did any talking belonged to my masseuse, Crystal, who in 30 minutes soothed my ergonomically wrecked, hunched-over upper body. I was here to temper what plugged-in parlance calls “mouse arm,” the geek’s answer to tennis elbow: a shoulder that sags under too many page views, a cranky forearm, a knobby curl of fingers.

“ Geez, you are tense,” Crystal observed as she started the computer cleanse. First came a circular rubdown of my upper chest, then a staccato shoulder-to-forearm massage, sending any carpal cramps out the door. There was a minimum of slip-slidey oil, which allowed Crystal to firmly grip my fingers and—crack, crack—straighten weeks’ worth of cramped mouse clicking. Next up: the neck, palpably swelling with stress, which Crystal pulverized away. Then, uh-oh. (I lied; my whole body’s fair tickle territory.) Starting at my Adam’s apple, Crystal inched her way around my neck with both hands. She’d pinch and I’d flinch.

Tickle number two came while facedown: Crystal dug her fingers into my armpit (oh!), while rubbing my tensed-up shoulders with her free hand. The payoff: a knot-free upper back, well worth the embarrassing startled response.

I left the session toasted—thanks to the robe that had been warmed in the meantime—and more importantly, fresh-faced and ready for the wide world of Becks and Blitzers.

MAXIMUM STRENGTH Wi-Fi massage, $65 members; $75 nonmembers for 30 minutes
EASY WAY OUT Personalized massage, $115 members; $125 nonmembers
The Spa at Pro Sports Club, 4455 148th Ave NE, Bellevue, 425-895-6565; proclub.com